Press releases

23 February 2004

Summary of discussion with library community over revised membership model

BioMed Central recently announced a revised membership model, which will affect renewals of membership agreements effective from January 2005. Full details of the BioMed Central membership renewal model for January 2005 are available on our website. The announcement has prompted concern and frustration from members of the library community.

At BioMed Central, we place real value on the excellent relationship we have enjoyed with librarians and the strong support they have given to the Open Access movement.

The main issues that BioMed Central is aware of are as follows:

1. That the revised policy was not announced in a proper way
2. That an institutional membership based on number of articles published would be no better for libraries than traditional subscription models
3. That the new model will cause problems in terms of budgeting
4. That BioMed Central would have misled the library community
5. That the new model transfers the cost of publishing from researchers to libraries

Concern 1: That the revised policy was not announced in a proper way

Members of the community have objected in particular to the way that the revised model was first discussed, via Yale University's Liblicense-l electronic discussion list. The model is planned for 2005 renewals, and communication to renewing customers and the wider community was planned for later in 2004 to allow plenty of time for discussion and explanation ahead of January 2005. However, a few questions were raised on the list about BMC's pricing model for institutions. One question related to how membership pricing would be affected by the fact that some of BioMed Central's journals, such as Genome Biology, BMC Biology and BMC Medicine, charge more than the base rate $525 per accepted article (the journals mentioned charge $1000), and the other to whether charges apply per article or per author, in the case of multiple authorship.

To give an open and honest response to this question, we talked on the list about the revised model that is planned. We reassured the list that the calculation would be based on the base rate charge of $525, regardless of which journal the article was published in. This way of calculating membership rates is aimed at making budgeting simpler for librarians, and rewarding their loyalty as members by effectively offering them discounts on the article processing charges for these more selective journals. As for the charges, we explained that they did indeed apply per article published and not per author.

BioMed Central accepts that this route of communication is not ideal, and may have led to confusion. For this, we offer an apology to the library community. Our intention was to be open and honest about how our thinking is evolving as we continue to build the Open Access publishing model, not to confuse or mislead.

Concern 2: An institutional membership based on number of articles published would be no better for libraries than traditional subscription models

The second concern is that BioMed Central's membership may be a wolf in sheep's clothing, and in fact no better for the library community than an institutional licence for a subscription product. Unlike a subscription fee, though, the membership fee has a clear and wholly transparent relationship with the actual level of use of the service. When BioMed Central membership was introduced in January 2002, it was breaking new ground - there was no established model to follow. At that time, it was decided that the fairest way to estimate how much an institution would use BioMed Central's services (in terms of publishing articles) was to look at the number of potential authors at that institution. This led to the 'flat rate' model based on FTE's. As the first wave of member institutions moved towards their second year of membership, it became clear that some institutions were publishing much more than would have been predicted under the flat rate model, and some less. In effect, the institutions that were publishing less than expected were subsidizing the institutions that were publishing a lot of articles. BioMed Central wanted to ensure that membership was fair for all of our customers, and that the service that institutions are receiving is accurately reflected in the membership fee, hence the move to the revised model for renewals.

BioMed Central's largest consortia customers, the JISC (which funded membership for all 180 UK universities), NHS England and OHIOLink are all already operating under the revised publishing model and have been since the outset of their membership.

Concern 3: The new model will cause problems in terms of budgeting

Librarians have quite naturally expressed concerns about budgeting. Specifically, how the revised model will affect their ability to predict the cost of BMC membership in coming years. Under the revised model, membership fees for any given year will be calculated based on the number of papers published, by submitting authors affiliated to that institution, in the previous year. For example, the 2005 rates will be calculated based on 2004 publication records. This enables librarians to look at their current usage when setting budgets for the next year. Information about the number of publication from their institution is freely available to librarians - in the statistics they are sent from BioMed Central each month, as well as continuously updated count on their 'My BioMed Central' web pages. In addition, BioMed Central representatives will always be happy to talk to their customers about this calculation to help with their budgeting. The aim is to have a pricing structure that is as transparent as possible.

However, it is recognized that this may not fully address the budget issues libraries face. BioMed Central takes this issue very seriously and is interested in an open dialogue with the library community with a view to finding proper long-term solutions.

Concern 4: That BioMed Central would have misled the library community

Although BioMed Central is a commercial publisher, we have always strived to make our pricing fair and reasonable - and to reflect the actual value that our customers are gaining from our products. We believe it is possible to be successful without making exorbitant profits.

BioMed Central fully understands that many librarians initially took out institutional membership to support the principles of Open Access, rather than as a service from a publisher. It seems that the relatively small costs involved, and that there was a flat membership rate based on FTEs, meant that librarians were prepared to use some of their budget, which we know to be highly restricted and precious, to support the development of a viable alternative to the subscription model. In addition, many institutional librarians have gone further in promoting and advocating Open Access to their users by encouraging them to publish in the Open Access BioMed Central journals. This commitment and involvement by librarians was critical to kick-starting the Open Access movement, and is still critical to its establishment and growth. At BioMed Central we are extremely grateful for this support.

Open Access publishing does represent a genuine alternative to the traditional subscription model, and an alternative that benefits the user, the researcher and the librarian. But in order to become that real alternative in practice as well as principle, it must be sustainable. BioMed Central has clearly stated that the revised membership program is necessary for the continued sustainability of the business model. Publishing articles carries real costs for the publisher, and these must be recovered in order for the publisher to continue to operate. As BioMed Central is currently the largest Open Access publisher, our performance is being closely watched by many to determine the feasibility of the model. We are for many people the test case, and we believe it is important to the widespread adoption of Open Access that BioMed Central emphatically succeeds.

Concern 5: the model transfers the cost of publishing from researchers to libraries

The discussion about the revised membership scheme has raised concerns that this transfers the cost of publishing from the researcher to the library. Many librarians feel that the money needed to cover the article processing charges should come from academic departments, from grants or from the funding bodies that issue the grants. BioMed Central, and many other organizations that advocate Open Access, are taking the view that publication is the last stage of a research project and integral to it. We are working hard to convince funding bodies and governments that this should be the case. While we work on this, we ask librarians to continue to support the growth of Open Access through institutional membership and to join us in the effort to achieve recognition that publishing an article reporting on the research carried out is indeed integral to the research project.

For full details of the BioMed Central membership renewal model for January 2005 please visit our institutional membership page.